Rooster(s) question or dilemma

[2wheelnurse]

I started raising chickens a little over a year ago. I had a happy bantam flock of 7--one rooster (Whitey) and 6 hens. The end of May I acquired 6 days-old chicks from the school's kindergarten egg-hatching project. I also let one of my banty hens hatch 3 eggs. Long story short, I currently have 6 banty hens and the 1 rooster from original flock plus 2 new banty roosters (these two kind of hang together, momma died before they were fully integrated with the original flock). And of the 6 new "big" chicks, 2 are roosters. So now I have 5 roosters. Total chicken count of 14. The 4 new roos are almost 3 months old, all are crowing. They seem to be tolerating or avoiding each other for the time being (they free range during the day, so that doesn't seem to be a problem). Whitey is a good rooster in that he is protective of his 5 hens, alerts them to food, etc, but he likes to attack my feet/ankles. So I have a couple of questions. Whitey seems to be at the top of the pecking order. If I decide to turn Whitey into soup, how disruptive is that going to be to the rest of the flock? The big chicks seem to hang together, can I have a big rooster with banty hens? Will the big rooster bother them too much? Can I have a couple of roosters? Also, if I downsize the number of the big chickens to say 2 or 3, should I also keep a big rooster with them or would my banty roo look after them, too? It seems like the two different sizes don't integrate very well. Would appreciate any thoughts. I really love the roosters, just don't have the space for 14 chickens and I'm concerned about maintaining flock happiness.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would not keep a large rooster with bantam hens, they could seriously hurt them trying to mate them, I have kept bantam roosters with large hens. I'm not sure why you would want to get rid of your older rooster, he sound like he takes good care of his hens, the younger bantam roosters will become a part of the flock as they age, they might be okay, large breed hens may or may not cause problems with the bantam hens, I find it best to keep them apart.

 

[2wheelnurse]

Thanks for the feedback. Really, the only reason I would get rid of Whitey (the current head honcho) is because I'm sick of him attacking my feet and ankles every time I go out to take care of them. Sometimes my mother-in-law fills in when we're gone, I would feel bad if he hurt her. But I don't know if one of the other two banty roos would step up and do a good job replacing him.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Yeah that would get tiring, I guess all you can do is try it and see what happens, odds are one of them turns out good. I would get rid of the big ones unless you want to breed big ones, the two bantam boys should be able to handle everyone after they get bigger, do expect a lot of drama if you should mix things up, might take a while for things to settle. I have 10 adult roosters and 4 young ones, so multiple roosters can exist, just depends how much they wear the hens, not all my roosters have hens.

 

[2wheelnurse]

OK. That helps a lot in my decision. Think I'll keep the two new banty roos and go from there.